Naivete Quotes

• Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

  Eric Hoffer

  Ignorance, Vanity, Stupidity

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• Reality is cruel. All of the naivete is going to be removed. Reality is always changing, and it is always unpredictable. All of the balance is going to be destroyed.

  Hideki Yukawa

  Reality, Balance, Unpredictable

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• You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.

  Henri Matisse

  Art, Love Is, Alaska

  "Time" magazine, June 26, 1950.

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• The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.

  Thomas Szasz

  Life, Forgiveness, Letting Go

  The Second Sin (1973) "Personal Conduct"

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• I'm guilty of extraordinary naivete, I suppose. But it's a naivete that I really don't want to abandon, not even now.

  Jock Sturges

  Artist, Want, Guilty

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• Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Beauty, Beautiful, Men

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• I gravitated to acting out of a mixture of instinct, naivete and opportunity.

  Jeffrey Combs

  Opportunity, Acting, Mixtures

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• Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes a part of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined. Out goes naivete, in comes wisdom; out goes anger, in comes discernment; out goes despair, in comes kindness. No one would call it easy, but the rhythm of emotional pain that we learn to tolerate is natural, constructive and expansive... The pain leaves you healthier than it found you.

  Martha Beck

  Inspirational, Pain, Kindness

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• I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Sophisticated, Reason, Enough

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• To speak of ‘limits to growth’ under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be ‘persuaded’ to limit growth than a human being can be ‘persuaded’ to stop breathing. Attempts to ‘green’ capitalism, to make it ‘ecological’, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.

  Murray Bookchin

  Nature, Warrior, Breathing

  "Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future". Book by Murray Bookchin, 1990.

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• It's very important to distinguish between innocence and naivete. The innocent do not deserve to be the victims of violence. But only the naive refuse to think about the origins of violence and to pursue the possibility that the genesis of that hatred could be addressed.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Thinking, Hatred, Important

  Interview with Bill Moyers, www.pbs.org. May 24, 2002.

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• It is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say 'this saved the life of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian'. Specific books, perhaps; but as far as one can tell, no paintings or sculptures. The difference between us and the artists of the 1920's is that they they thought such a work of art could be made. Perhaps it was a certain naivete that made them think so. But it is certainly our loss that we cannot.

  Robert Hughes

  Art, Book, Loss

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• There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.

  Glen Cook

  Dream, Dust, Once Upon A Time

  Glen Cook (2007). “Chronicles of the Black Company”, p.457, Macmillan

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• The cemetery is full of people who thought they could change themselves tomorrow.

  Boonaa Mohammed

  People, Tomorrow, Cemetery

  Twitter post from Oct 25, 2013

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• The childlike, gum-chewing naivete, the glamour rooted in despair, the self-admiring carelessness, the perfected otherness, the wispiness, the shadowy, voyeuristic, vaguely sinister aura, the pale, soft-spoken magical presence, the skin and bones . . .

  Andy Warhol

  Self, Despair, Skins

  Andy Warhol (2014). “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again”, p.23, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I don't know if it's naivete or just narcissism, but I start out with this notion that I can do anything. It's not until I get into it that I realize what I've thrown myself into, and then I will do anything not to humiliate myself. And that, I think, is the secret to my success.

  Michelle Pfeiffer

  Thinking, Secret, Narcissism

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• Sometimes a good idea comes to you when you are not looking for it. Through an improbable combination of coincidence, naivete and lucky mistakes.

  Kary Mullis

  Mistake, Science, Ideas

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• I feel like I've survived so much, and been through so much. And sometimes I miss the innocence of those times. Life was different. New York was different. The music business was different. I miss the simplicity of it, the naivete of everyone around me.

  Madonna Ciccone

  New York, Simplicity, Missing

  Source: www.independent.ie

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• What I liked about it is in the world of children, there are very, very different rules and a kind of naivete and innocence and sweetness that's been beautifully captured, I think, by this film as you can even see gesturing toward the film's poster on display nearby from this gorgeous artwork.

  Russell Brand

  Children, Thinking, Different

  The MoviesOnline Interview, www.moviesonline.ca. 2011.

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• The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Writing, Profound, Perfect

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• I really believe in completely being naive and having high hopes when meeting someone new. I can kind of re-do my stupidity or my naivete.

  Fiona Apple

  Believe, Stupidity, Kind

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• Doubt, or the absence of faith and naivete, is a vice peculiar to this age, for no one is obedient nowadays; and naivete, which means the dominance of temperament in the manner, is a gift from God, possessed by very few.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Mean, Doubt, Age

  Charles Baudelaire (1981). “Baudelaire: Selected Writings on Art and Artists”, p.102, CUP Archive

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• Knowingness is sexy. The opposite of sexy is naivete.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Sexy, Women, Opposites

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• Chinese were bornwith an accumulated wisdom, a natural sophistication, an intelligent naivete, and unless they were transplanted too young, these qualities ripened in them.... If ever I am homesick for China, now that I am home in my own country, it is when I discover here no philosophy. Our people have opinions and creeds and prejudices and ideas but as yet no philosophy.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Country, Philosophy, Philosophical

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• I didn't come from a wealthy family. I had no money. Maybe it goes back to naivete which is your greatest asset when you're young. If I was starting in comedy today and if it didn't work the first time, I'd probably quit. But I kept at it, kept at it.

  Steve Martin

  Today, Firsts, Comedy

  "COVER STORY : A Side Order of Steve Martin : He's had his ups and downs with L.A., but they're back together in his new movie". Interview with Elaine Dutka, articles.latimes.com. February 3, 1991.

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